Chapter 21: The Revival of Nuclear Fusion
Some mintues ago...
After Rin had unglued herself from Shina's wrist, the two set out to scour the entire palace head-to-toe for any signs of the Cosmos Drive. The Kasha had an inquisitive heart befitting her somewhat feline nature, and she peppered Shina with a barrage of questions along the way.
It was pretty much harmless to Shina to answer any of them, but she did feel a little dizzy in the head from the sheer frequency they came out at. But otherwise, she thought was being very helpful.
Shina had the compliment Satori's discipline of the Kasha, as she displayed an iron-clad focus on the task her master had assigned. With her seniority over the other the pets, Rin could easily rally them to assist, and understand their animalistic cries whereas Shina could not.
The birds combed the ceiling, the cats hung close to the ground, and the bigger beasts dashed through the halls like they were struck with spring fever. Shina found it was incredible to watch all these animals, who would normally antagonize one another, work together in perfect harmony.
It motivated her to do her best as well, and she ended up double-checking some of the spots the pets scanned just briefly. She took out the artifact and held it aloft beside her face the whole time, hoping to receive a response. But none would ever come.
It was a big palace to be sure, but by working together with Satori's pets the size felt no bigger than her own home. After five minutes of searching, however, Shina had no choice but to stop and catch her breath.
"Whew..." She emptied her lungs with a sigh and slumped against a pillar no different from the rest. While laying a hand atop her chest, she stared at the ceiling, and let the artifact droop by her hip.
"Golly, if the Cosmos Drive was alive it'd be the hide 'n seek champion of the universe!" She could try and say that with a smile, but it was hard to ignore how tired she was of playing cat and mouse. As she let out another humdrum sigh, Rin shuffled on by, having been using her cat form to cover ground faster.
A plethora of animals ran around behind Rin as she turned back into a human and leaned closer to Shina with a cheerful tone, "Are you ok? You're starting to look like a ghost!"
Shina couldn't look dour in front of such a cute and eager cat, and after beaming her a weak smile she said, "On I'm fine Rin! Ya've tried yer best, but I just think we're at a dead end 'ere."
"Are you sure? Maybe we haven't tried everything!" Rin replied optimistically.
Shina lifted the artifact held upside-down before her chest and puckered her lips a little, "I dunno. I thought this woulda reacted when we got, but its more dead than disco."
"Dice...co?" Rin puzzled herself with a wiggly grin and a tilt of the head.
Shina peeke her head up and smiled wider. "A cat's still a cat" She thought before setting out to answer her question excitedly, "Yeah! Disco's a kinda dance where a buncha people dress funny and act silly under strobe lights and this sparkly silver ball!"
"Wow you're right, no wonder its dead. Every practioner must've died of embarrassment." Rin gave her critique with the sharp-tongue of a snake, getting a laugh out of Shina.
Rin then asked her, "Well didja try the Fallen Capital? Ya had to've passed it by to get here!"
"Someone above ground told us to come right here, so I thiiiink they mighta known not to bother there?" Shina replied with a shaky certainty in her voice.
"Hmm..." Rin closed her eyes and laid her hands down by her hips, only raising one with a shrill 'Mrrreeoow!' as she was struck with inspiration.
"There's one other place we can check! And its really close by to boot!"
"The Hell of Blazing Fires?" Shina answered prematurely.
"The Hell of Blazing Fi-" Rin bit her tongue and stared blankly towards Shina, "Can you read minds like Lady Satory?!"
Shina covered her tensely awkward smile with the artifact and chuckled, "Oh no no no! I just ummm...heard of it from that person I mentioned before! Yeah!"
Rin was none the wiser to the fact she was being fooled, but Shina still playfully bopped herself twice on the head as punishment for this deceit. Chipperly grinning, Rin Declared, "Follow me then! I'll show ya where it is!"
They traveled further north into the palace, arriving at a place Shina had only seen previously in passing, the courtyard. Once more the atmosphere changed to something unbecoming of a former Hell. The air was clean like a garden's, with a ceiling as bright and relaxed as the summer's sky. Rose bushes surrounded the center of the courtyard, containing a marble fountain flowing with pure, sparkling water.
There was just one stone bench close to it, no doubt Satori's choice spot to unwind and read, while in front of the fountain was this big gaping hole leading even further Underground.
Rin hustyled right over to it and hunched over without a hint of fear as she hollered down, "Heeeey Reiuuujii!"
As Shina approached the chasm, it responded with the echoing howls of a thousand dead souls and a teensy bit of crackling flames. Shina's eyes widened on their own as she slowly reeled back in and looked to Rin, who shrugged and said, "Huh, she must still be working."
She cupped her heads around her mouth and raised her voice just a feeew decibels higher, "REIUUUJI!"
Once Shina could no longer feel her ears ringing, she peered into the chasm and heard the wails of the dead yell back. With a cols shiver creeping across bumpy skin, she turned to Rin and politely asked, "What's going on down there?"
"Oh, its just a furnace." Rin said, naturally unfazed.
Shina leaned in and took a whiff of that ghastly, putried smell seeping up in a draft. Then she pinched her nostrils shut in revulsion and thought "That's enougha that" before humoring the Kasha with, "Whatcha cooking? Rubber with a side of pig grease?"
"Only the most freshly rot corpses and finest vengeful spirits can satisfy these flames." She replied with a pleasuribly cheeky smirk born from a love of that foul fragrance.
Shina chuckled dryly for a bit as she stepped away from the chasm and proceeded to ask, "I'm guessing charcoal's too hard to come by?"
"Hehehe, my friend works really hard down there for Lady Satory, "Rin said, unintentionally blowing off Shina's joke, "I cart the corpses, she does the cooking, and the flames of Hell remain satisfied!"
"Sounds like a lotta down n' dirty work for two pets to tackle on their own." Shina said with mild concern.
"Not at all!" Rin proclaimed with a spring in her step as she spun around and leaned forward, laying one hand by her face to whisper, "This is our little secret but...My friend's hosting the soul of the goddess Yatagarasu!"
"Yatagarasu?!" Even knowing that fact beforehand, Shina could not stop herself from gasping in awe.
Rin smiled satisfactorily and heaped praise upon her friend, "Yep! She's a bit of a scatterbrain, but there's no one else Lady Satori trusts to manage the place!"
"Satori must reward ya both handsomely for yer help."
"She pets us, feeds us and loves us, and that's good enough for me!"
Shina found herself feeling a tad jealous of the simplicity of the Kasha's heart. Even though she's more evolved than the rest of her kin, Rin could still succumb to a feline's base desires.
"Coooo!" The humble sound of a small bird grabbed the two's attention back towards the chasm, from which a strange raven had just fluttered to the top of. Shina saw a hint of blue in the raven's wings that reminded her of the intense flames of a stove top, and upon their feathery chest was a docile open red eye with a tall, piercing pupil.
Though abnormal, the raven posed no threat beyond the curious vibes towards her Shina sensed from it. Rin hustled back to the edge of the chasm and called out, "There you are Okuu!"
The raven flew closer as Rin retreated, then with a puff of smoke transformed much like she could. She became a tall, slender girl with messy, long dark brown hair. Her strange eye had transferred to the chest of her white short sleeved shirt, which was above a short green skirt. On her back was a cool looking white cape with a starry pattern on the inside, the whole thing kept aloft by her raven black wings. Attached to her right arm was an orange device reminiscent of a nuclear control rod, while around her right foot was congealed matter, a mass of cooled radioactive material and glass. Finally, around her left ankle were some orbiting electrons. Though Rin referred to the girl by her pet name, her real name was something Shina thought was a little more awesome.
Utsuho Reiuji ~ Raven of the Nuclear Flames
"Orin! Hi! What are you doing here?" Utsuho looked so much more mature than her friend, and perhaps a little badass to boot. But what Shina heard from the hell raven's mouth was a ditzy voice that flipped that awesome imagery so completely on its head that she experienced a brutal mental whiplash.
"Ghuuh...Gluuuh?" Shina's head slumped back, while drool slowly formed in her agape mouth.
"I was calling for you, you birdbrain!" Rin said in a playful tone.
Utsuho eagerly deduced from this that, "Did Lady Satori need me?"
"Not at all. This visitor of ours, she-" Rin looked upin Shina's flabbergasted face and let out a dry hum of, "Uhh..."
Utsuho prodded Shina's chest a few times and shamelessly commented, "Orin, I think something's wrong with this corpse!"
"She's not a corpse Okuu...At least, she wasn't a minute ago." Rin grabbed Shina's hip and gave it a gentle shake, while her friend took the more direct route.
"Knock knock, anyone home?" Utsuho bonked Shina twice on the head with her rod. It was successful in snapping her back to reality, but also made her start tipping over.
"Who-WHOA!" Shina madly flailed her arms to regain balance in seconds, and was immediately face-to-face with Utsuho. The raven saluted with her rod while saying, "I'm glad you're not a corpse strange person!"
The sheer tonal dissonance between Utsuho's appearance and voice still kept Shina's mind in a daze, but she knew she's just have to get over herself. At least Utsuho still looked cute.
The raven batted her eyelids and inquired, "Ummm...who are you supposed to be?"
"Shina, Shina-" Midway through her habitual introducation, Shina recognized it'd be too hard a name for Utsuho to recall and instead told her, "Uhh, just call me a friend of yer master's!"
"Ok!" Utsuho responded so quickly that it was doubtful Shina's words registered.
Rin then helped Shina prop the artifact up to her friend's face while explaining, "See this Okuu? I want you to concentrate reeeeally hard on it and tell us if you've seen any indents similar to it down below."
Utsuho stared wide-eyed at the stone, drawn in by its mythical nature. Shina leaned closer to Rin and whispered in her ear, "Ya sure about this?"
Utsuho hummed in a strainful manner, as though overclocking her brain. Yet even in the wake of Shina's worries, Rin vouced for her friend's competence this time, "She worked long enough down there. She'll know, I swear it!"
The raven pulled back and shook her head with a somewhat sorrowful gaze, "I'm sorry, I've never seen anything like that."
Shina sighed, then slowly brought the artifact back and rewarded Utsuho's efforts with a smile, "Well thanks for trying anyways."
But she was getting worried. There were still two locations worth checking according to Mamizou: The Ministry of Right and Wrong and the Netherworld. The Cosmos Drive had to be in either place, yet was it possible that it wasn't? No, no, not at all. The artifact wouldn't lie. Shina knew she needed to remain positive at all times, especially now.
"Earth to Shina. Hello? Shina?" Rin's antsy pestering grabbed her attention instantly.
"What is it Rin?" She replied with her usual pep.
"Since your friend's still busy, why don't you play with us? Pretty please?" Rin pleaded with her hands clasped before her chest.
Shina looked back into the palace and wondered what was taking Alex so long. Nothing felt off, perse, but Satori didn't strike her as someone Alex'd get along with. Though for a moment, Shina wondered if that was a sleight against Satori, or Alex.
She then spun back towards Rin and proclaimed, "Sure! I'll gladly play with ya both for a bit!"
"You hear that Okuu? We got a play mate!"
Utsuho raised her rod up high and cried out much like how a child opening a present would, "Hooray!"
"Hmmm...Now where do I begin?" Shina wracked her brain hard for knowledge on animals, "Maybe birds and cat both like these?"
She whipped her right hand around a bit and created a ball of aura. Rin stared at it with eyes full of confusion, devoid of even the slightest enticement. Shina threw it out and while both pets watched it fly and fall, there wasn't a single spark of life in their eyes.
Shina rubbed her chin while Rin stared at her and went, "Ummm..."
"Guess that's a no-go...Maybe string'll do it?" Shina dangled a hand between the two and created a long piece of string. She even felt proud having perfectly emulated its fuzziness. Utsuho's eyes lit up and she reached out and nibbled on it with her lips, shocking Rin.
"Thiiiis...wasn't what I meant." Rin hated to be the rain on the parade, so to speak, but it was the type of attitude Shina needed to see to get the point.
"Oooh...You meant a Spell Card Duel, didn't ya?" Shina dispelled the string, leaving Utsuho hanging with a look of bewilderment for a bit.
"Yeah! Me and Okuu versus you! Unless...you think you can't handle us?" Rin got a little smug glint in her eyes, yet Shina responded with greater confidence, "Ain't my first rodeo facing two tough cookies by myself!"
"Great! So we don't disturb Lady Satori, why don't we go play in the Hell of Blazing Fires?"
Shina was mildly concerned there, "Ummm...isn't that dangerous for a human?"
"Not at all! The only danger is falling into the magma when you're alive! Cause if you do for too long..." Rin's eyes and tone turned grim, "Then your soul will be damned for an eternity with no hope of passing on, no matter how nice you were."
Shina felt her heart momentarily faint. Rin returned to being all sunshine and rainbows scarily fast and said to her wayward thinking friend, "Come on Okuu! I'll race you down there!"
"I won't lose to you Orin!" Utsuho declared with a fiery spirit in every word she spoke, and in a flash the two set off down the chasm. Feeling her own competitive spirit rising, Shina chased right after them with a smile.
The chasm remained dark for only a few seconds. The flames of the hellscape far below Gensokyo greeted her first with its heat, then with its light, which felt unnatural in spite of it reminding her of a sunset's pristine glow. The rougher temperatures soon forced her to coat her body in a thin layer of aura for protection.
After a slight bend in the tunnel, she shunted straight out towards the afforementioned Hell of Blazing Fires. The flames of Hell were so blistering hot it turned the normally brown cavern walls dark red, and that nasty smell from before still lingered in the air and made Shina feel revulsed.
She took a look around as she slowly made her way to the center of the cavern. This was the very end of the Underground, the place where the condemned are burned down for fuel. "Hard to believe this place is run by such friendly folk..." Shina thought as she could feel faint traces of those condemned souls in the surrounding air, making her body quiver on its own.
She found Utsuho and Rin in the center of the room, the Kasha slumped over while the raven danced in triumph. Once Shina was close by, however, they turned their attention towards her with the flames of battle fired up in their pupils.
Rin bore a fang for the first time, while Utsuho cast aside her childish demeanor and spread her magnificent cape with just a swing of the hand. Rin chuckled excitedly as she turned slightly to her friend and told her, "Been a long time since we got to let loose and have fun like this Okuu!"
"Lady Satori doesn't want us to go all-out against other people, even in Danmaku. But you look tough enough to handle us, stranger!" Utsuho grinned from cheek-to-cheek as her nuclear control rod activated, becoming covered in strange techno lines.
Shina could feel sweat forming on her forehead as she tensely closed her eyes and insisted, "L-Lets not go getting carried away now!"
The two giggled with a mix of innocence and mischievousness, then snuggled close together with an arm held on each other's backs, and pointed the free one straight towards Shina. Rin then declared without a care in the world, "Its not any fun if you hold back!"
"Yeah! We're gonna show you our very best!" Utsuho added on with such perfect timing that it was like a complete sentence had been spoken by a single person.
The two then pulled out a combined Spell Card between them, and Shina slapped down her Gunslinger Drive. As they crushed the card together, she summoned her pistols and prepared for whatever the two had coming.
"Corpse Burning 'Funeral Pyre of Nuclear Flames'!"
With their voices echoing amongst the roaring flames below, Rin hopped onto Utsuho's shoulders as the raven summoned forth her Danmaku. She held nothing back, and threw out large bright red orbs filled with solar energy in all directions. Each orb was ten times bigger than Shina, and overwhelmed her eyes at first with their sheer luminosity.
She gasped and peeled away lightning fast, her gaze drawn in by their mystifying power. There was plenty of space to move around in, but for the impressive size the solar orbs boasted they also had the speed to match hers. Shina had to move constantly, exploiting the gaps between the orbs wherever she could find them.
Yet upon approaching them, Shina recognized a force dragging her in closer. The orbs had their own gravitational fields, powerful ones at that! She had to boost her speed with her rocket boots to escape their pull, then immediately grind to a halt before she barreled into the many blue danmaku bullets flying about.
Rin's contribution became evident soon after, as through the brightened atmosphere Shina could squint and see rings of bright flaming skulls zooming out from the center of the arena. They spread out between Utsuho's attacks, too ethereal to succumb to gravity. Each skull broke down and became winding waves of sharp red crystal Danmaku, adding greatly to this chaotic atmosphere.
As with Mokou and Kaguya, and Byakuren and Miko, the two pets complimented each other's strengths and covered for their weaknesses. Utsuho's overwhelming power had a simple pattern to avoid, but Rin slipped her super fast Danmaku in-between the gaps.
Shina had to endure quite a bit of Danmaku before she even had a chance to get either pet in her crosshairs. It was all about regulating her bursts of speed along with quick paced attacks when it came to this particular Spell Card. There was no time to waste on fighting raw firepower with raw firepower, it'd just lead to her defeat.
She really didn't need to win, she knew that, so once more she had to blame Alex's overcompetitive nature for rubbing off on her. After surviving Rin's first barrage, Shina floated upright and sent many bullets forth from her SMGs, squeezing them between Utsuho's orbs to hit their master square in the chest.
The raven braced herself firmly in the air and kept firing more Danmaku off, grinning all the while. Rin merrily spread the souls she worked with around like confetti, supporting her best friend as best she could. A couple of those rings surrounded Shina, forcing her to fly back and weave around the bullets that came after.
This then put her right around one of Utsuho's orbs, where the raven's last trick came to light, albeit by pure accident. The gravitional force surrounding the orbs drew the scattered blue Danmaku in and turned them into rings similar to those around Saturn.
"That's so cool!" Shina's eyes lit up with the sparkle of amazement for just that moment before she glided around the orb, ring of Danmaku and all, and took some quick pot-shots at the danger duo. Then she weaved to the right through some of Rin's bullets and got an idea.
Knowing what Utsuho's Danmaku was capable of, Shina fired her bullets out at a faster speed, sacrificing some of their power to take advantage of the gravitational pull to slingshot them over the orbs and into her opponents. She briefly clicked her tongue and muttered 'Niiice' before the tight situation forced her on the move.
Keeping pace with everything happening on the battlefield was now simply a matter of knowing when to shoot and when to move. Of course, that advice could really be applied to all Danmaku battles, so Shina felt a little silly having to remind herself of that by now. But there was a slight difference in this battle, and that was the flames raging below.
Her aura offered protection from the heat to a certain degree, but prolonged exposure would wear her down eventually. Eventually could mean a few minutes or an hour, Shina wasn't quite certain as she'd never been exposed to this much heat before, even around Alex.
Shina flew circular around the battlefield and dove and rose around the Danmaku, exposing the gaps to fire bullets. It was hard to resist the urge not to use heavier weapons, but she needed the speed more than power. She also found a safe zone in the area directly in the center between her opponents and the walls, and stuck to it.
Eventually, by sticking to this pattern of attack and defense, Shina's bullets wore down the two's defenses and took down the Spell Card. The explosion of Danmaku was particularly loud this time, thanks in part to Utsuho's arsenal.
"Whew! Just made it!" Shina swiped the thin veil of sweat from her forehead and then shook her arms out. She didn't feel too warn down so far, a stark contrast to when she first started Danmaku'ing. She floated back in front of her opponent's line of sight, where Rin had dismounted from Utsuho to float beside her again.
"You're pretty good!" Rin took in a deep breath and let it out somewhat tiredly, "Whew...! Haven't worked myself that hard since the last time the shrine maiden was down here! How ya holding up Okuu?"
The raven had a ferocious grin, and her body was radiating with a slow burning fire. Rin tilted her head and felt a slight bit of concern, "Okuu? ...You ok?"
Utsuho raised her left hand up towards Shina, pretending she was standing on her palm, then crushed her fingers tight into a fist and growled energetically, "She's really strong! Just being around her makes me wanna go all-out Orin!"
Rin puffed out a quick sigh and shook her head, "Guess I should just leave this to you then?"
Utsuho fervently nodded her head with a hum, then spread her wings out as wide as they'd go, the imagery of space inside her cape beginning to move independent of the rest of the cape. Rin grinned and then wagged a finger to gently warn her friend, "Don't get crazy like last time Okuu! I don't wanna have to cart her deep-fried corpse into the furnace!"
"Uh-huh!" Utsuho slanted her brows as the fire surrounding her intensfied. Rin felt the sweat building up in her clothes and scurried off, stopping besides Shina to tell her, "You're in for a tough time now! Good luck!"
Shina was too busy staring at the hell raven to hear Rin run on by. Utsuho's power was spiking wildly, and it didn't seem normal to Shina. But at the same time, had she ever really gotten to examine the aura of a goddess at this point? Perhaps she was just overthinking things...
At least Utsuho was now living up to being the kind of badass Shina thought she'd be. The confident posture and radiant power was a perfect fit with her cape and wings. She was itching for the fight of her life, and Shina had planned to give it to her.
Utsuho's aura churned out flames similar to flares off the sun's surface as she summoned a sparkling Spell Card before her chest and pressed her nuclear control rod against it.
"Last Word! Blazing Cosmos ~Solar Overdrive!"
Utsuho blasted the Spell Card apart with a heavy exertion of her power, which sent out a shockwave powerful enough to push Shina back. Klaxons then blared across the battlefield, a warning call of apocalyptic proportions. When combined with the nuclear warning symbol surrounding Utsuho's body, it wouldn't be wrong to assume the worst.
But this was simply the manifestation of Utsuho's serious side. She grit her teeth and rose higher up to meet Shina eye-to-eye as equals, then swung her left hand out and sent forth dozens upon dozens of those red solar orbs from before.
Shina evaded them quickly, feeling the same gravitational pull as before. But the orbs were serving a different purpose this time. They stuck to the perimeter of the Blazing Hell like an omnipresent wall and diminished the space that Shina could move.
Radiating with the light of the sun high in the sky on a summer's day, the orbs blinded Shina from even the briefest glance and tried to pull her in closer. She rocketed forward with her boots, only to realized with a gasp of awe just how little Utsuho was pulling her punches.
The hell raven surrounded herself in a cage of spread-out miniature suns, each one a perfect replica of the human perception of the celestial body hovering light years away from Earth. Utsuho flapped her wings and with each beat sent forth solar flares from these suns to cover the expanse her orbs had failed to seal off.
Shina flipped sideways and tightly pushed between two of the flares. Even as Danmaku, they looked and felt so real that it was rather hair-raising. With her skin riddled with goosegumps and her heart racing faster than a scared antelope, Shina took aim at Utsuho and started off with a hefty barrage of bullets.
The suns were smaller than the orbs, thus removing the need to worry about their gravity. The flares were more troublesome than first anticipated, for when they reached the orbs they broke apart into red-white hot Danmaku that rotated around them and were flung back to Shina at twice their normal speed.
She was caught by surprise when they hit her back, and the moment she turned around to see them one of the flares came dangerously close to striking her. She flipped over it in the nick of time and pointed her guns forward while floating upside-down, taking dozens of shots before other flares forced her to bolt ten feet down to escape.
She zipped back, leaning as another flare flew her way. A couple of the bullets hit her from the return back, but she shrugged them off and kept flying quickly to the right. Without Rin helping out, Shina was definitely struggling with her urges to use more powerful weaponry. It was like there was this fuzzy itch in her trigger finger that she just simply couldn't scratch.
...And this time, she let her heart be her guide.
Sharply coming to a stop between a pair of passing by flares, Shina cocked her arms up and summoned a pair of rocket launchers. Gritting her teeth with a feeling of enjoyment pleasing her heart, she pulled down the triggers with all she's got and fired two massive rockets straight towards Utsuho.
The recoil launched her into plenty of Danmaku, but it was fun just to let loose and show the hell raven the same firepower she was displaying here. Utsuho swung her cape up for protection, pretending that she was in a real bare-knuckles brawl with this opponent she found worthy of facing her one-on-one.
Having satisfied herself thusly, Shina resumed to using the faster SMGs to pepper the bullets into the hell raven while keeping on the move. As it turned out though, there was still one more addition to Utsuho's Last Word that Shina didn't see coming.
She fired tightly woven shurikens of blue Danmaku, each one having sparkling similar to the stars in the night sky. What Shina took away from this is that they were meant to resemble galaxies. They were pretty large shurikens too. Not as big as the real deals, obviously, but impressive enough in scale to be of concern.
Shina swerved hard to the left and ducked under one of the shuriken, placing her guns against her chest for optimal firing. Then she folded her legs in and "hopped" over another shuriken, but ended up hitting another flare that pushed her into a few of the red-white Danmaku.
She recovered fast but was starting to feel a little winded. Meanwhile Utsuho had plenty of energy to spare, even if it was probably just for show. Her energy was flaring like mad, and for a moment Shina could've sworn she heard a quiet growl coming from her.
But she shook it off, believing it to just be a lone vengeful spirit boiling in the hellfire below. She took her SMGs and kept firing while on the move, evading every other flare as the shurikens started making it difficult to keep away from them all.
Yet when push came to shove Shina knew how to hold out as long as physically possible, even if it would leave her exhausted. After thirty more seconds of tangoing with Utsuho's Last Word, the last bullets struck the hell raven head-on, and broke all her Danmaku apart.
It was quite the pretty lightshow all things considered, and made victory even sweeter for Shina. She pumped her fist into the air and cried out, "Yeah! I did it!"
Rin's disappointment could be heard from afar as she floated over to Shina and commented on her friend's performance, "Awww, you tried your best Okuu, but I guess the aboveground folk are just too tough to handle."
She was nevertheless proud of the hell raven, and showed it with a gentle smile.
Shina and her looked over at Utsuho, who was just floating there unresponsive to either of their voices, and got a mite concerned. Rin floated closer and raised her voice, "Hey now, don't be a sore loser Okuu. Say you had fun, ok?"
Shina's heart was racing, not from the thrill of battle, but from her mind sending her warnings up the wazoo. Utsuho's power was spiking like crazy, unable to be contained within her body. Her aura was spreading out, taking on the form of a gigantic crow with the heart of a black sun.
"Rin, quickly, get back!" She yelled with her hand outstretched.
Rin glanced over her shoulder in confusion as a shockwave of fire burst forth from Utsuho's chest, and blew her away. Shina was there to catch the Kasha, but the two could only stand back and watch as the hell raven underwent a painful experience.
Utsuho grit her teeth and reared her head back as her strange eye was set ablaze with hellfire. She clenched tightly onto her control rod as nuclear energy pulsed forth like lightning from her skin pores. The pain was too great to even let her scream.
"O-Okuu?! What's going on?!" Rin turned to Shina and yelled in exasperation, "What did you do to her?!"
Shina was just as confused as she was, at least at first, "I-I didn't do anything! I swear this isn't my doing!"
She spoke honestly with all her heart, but Rin could only plead with tears in her eyes, "Then what is...?! What's hurting my best friend?!"
Shina could only wager a guess that this was the mastermind's doing. This monstrous power edged way too close to Shadow Junko's to be a coincidence. But whereas that awful Shadow was devoid of nothing but the power of purity, what was filling Utsuho's body to the breaking point was something divine and ancient...and angry.
The rage of this power churned the cauldron of the damned to life, and raised its hellish flames to envelop the hell raven in a whirling cocoon of chaos. Rin was dead silent, fearful for her friend's life. But what would emerge from that cocoon was not her friend, but a twisted creature that took upon something mildly resembling her.
With a pale shriek capable of exorcising the souls of mortals from their bodies on a city-wide level, the creature spread its burning red, feathery wings to part the devil's flames, and emerged into this world a titan towering over its domain once more. This nightmarish beast took on the shape of Utsuho save for the arms and feet, the former of which were gone, and the latter of which had been transformed into a trio of three-taloned crow's feet. Its whole body was searing crimson, burning angrier than a star that had turned into a red giant. Its eyes were pale and fueled with a blind rage capable of scorching the surface of entire planets in an instant. And its cape, once entwined in the majesty of the cosmos, was now slowly having its beauty snuffed out one star at a time until only a blood red cosmology would remain.
This was the god revered in the days long before Gensokyo ever existed. Its presence once signaled the coming of divine intervention from gods higher than it, and symbolized both rebirth and rejuvenation. But this creature was a horrid shell of its former self, running only on the fumes of its own ceaseless grudge against the one who slain it. It could not speak, for its lungs were filled with the hollow screeches of its own self-inflicted pain.
Utsuho had been made its host for quite some time, but now she was its prisoner. Rin wanted to reach out, and call her friend's name, but knew it was a futile effort. The mad fury of this god had possessed Utsuho whole, and Shina knew the mastermind was to blame for this atrocity. Yet with the target of its grudge nowhere to be found, the mad god set its sights on those closest by with an empty, soul-charring glare. There was no avoiding a battle here...Shina knew she had to face this god, alone if she must. But perhaps she'd serve herself well to not underestimate the power of...
YATAGARASU ~ The Crimson Raven Who Swallowed the Black Sun
Next Time: Timeless Grudges